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All Rise...

This film made Judge Patrick Bromley want to hurl. Which, coincidentally, is what happened the last time he rode in a taxi.

The Charge

He's armed, but she's dangerous.

Opening Statement

So…let me get this straight…Jimmy Fallon left Saturday Night
Live for this??

Facts of the Case

See, there's this cop, and he's played by Jimmy Fallon (Almost Famous). But he's not like a
regular cop, see, he's a cop who CAN'T DRIVE! That's right, he's a BAD DRIVER!
And possibly even RETARDED! His lieutenant, played by Jennifer Esposito (Summer of Sam), YELLS at him A LOT!
But, get this, they used to DATE! So, like, there's THAT!

Jimmy meets a cabbie played by Queen Latifah (Chicago), and she's a really GOOD DRIVER!
And that's funny, see, because Jimmy's such a BAD DRIVER! Are you getting this?
Well, they don't like each other! In fact, she YELLS at him A LOT! But he
commandeers her SUPER-CHARGED TAXI, and together they chase BANK ROBBERS! And
not just regular bank robbers! These bank robbers are actually BRAZILIAN SUPER
MODELS!

What else? Oh, yeah—one of the SUPER MODEL BANK ROBBERS is played by
real-life super model Gisele Bundchen! And Jimmy Fallon's mom is played by
Ann-Margaret (Carnal Knowledge), who might also be RETARDED! But really
she's just a DRUNK! And that TAXI goes REALLY FAST! And everyone YELLS at Jimmy
Fallon A LOT!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

The Evidence

Tim Story's Taxi is an unfunny movie
featuring unfunny people doing unfunny things. What exactly it wants us to be
laughing at, I cannot say: Car chases? Incessant bickering? Alcoholism? There
are so many bad ideas crashing into one another at such a frantic pace that the
film can't keep from imploding, beginning with the premise. Was there any chance
that this material could be funny? We're left scratching our heads—what
were they thinking?

The screenplay, based on a 1998 French film written by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element), is credited to
three writers: Jim Kouf, Ben Garant, and Thomas Lennon. The latter two gentleman
were part of MTV's late, great sketch comedy series The State and are now
on Comedy Central's inspired Reno 911!. They're funny people. What the
hell happened? There are no signs of their brand of humor in the finished film,
so does the screenplay they submitted even exist anymore? Was there nothing
funny to begin with? Or was the third writer brought in to make the comedy more
"accessible" or "mainstream"? A quick visit over to the
Internet Movie Database tells me that the third writer, one Jim Kouf, is also
responsible for penning National
Treasure and Snow Dogs, so I've got a
pretty good idea what must have happened.

What's most shocking about all of this is the fact that anyone involved with
the film claims to have used a screenplay at all, as I'm not convinced that was
the case. The two main characters, Fallon and Latifah (would Queen be her first
name, or is that, like, a title?), have exactly one line apiece; Fallon mumbles
something stupid and half incoherent, and Latifah tells him to, "Shut up,
fool." Sometimes she says, "You're crazy, fool," and still others
it's, "Damn, fool," but the gist is pretty much the same. Every line
of dialogue they have is basically a variation on their one line—the
exchanges are as grating as they are repetitive. When someone actually needs to
use dialogue to advance the plot, it's done as an afterthought; in one scene,
Fallon wakes up from a night's sleep and instantly remembers a conversation he
heard the bank robbers having in Portuguese (and yes, there are many of
us who do dream of Brazilian supermodels, but that's not what they're going for
here—even that joke isn't capitalized on). And it just so happens that
Queen Latifah speaks Portuguese! And that this one piece of information,
recalled at random, is a key piece of information for cracking the case! Man,
that was easy!

It's difficult to tell whether Jimmy Fallon is not yet leading man material,
or if he's just painfully miscast here—though not for lack of trying; he's
so pantingly eager to please, he practically humps the audience's leg in
approval-seeking desperation. He's not convincing as a cop—he's hardly
even convincing as a human. Fallon's not entirely without talent; he had a
certain charm in his early days on SNL, and has been effective in smaller
roles in both Almost Famous and
Anything Else. That those films were directed by Cameron Crowe and Woody
Allen, respectively, tells me that Fallon ought to stick with either smaller
parts or better directors. Queen Latifah fares considerably better, if for no
other reason than she already commands the screen as an actress—she brings
a personality to the role, unlike Fallon, who simply washes away. You just want
to grab him, shake him, and tell him to stop trying so hard—it isn't
working.

Taxi arrives on DVD courtesy of Fox in a special edition with more
extras than anyone could want (to be fair, any extras would be more than
I want, but that's just me). The film is presented in its original aspect ratio
of 2.35:1 and is enhanced for 16x9 playback; detail is meticulous and colors
hold up well. There is some visible edge enhancement, thought it's difficult to
distinguish from the haloing that appears as a result of the obvious rear-screen
projection effects used in any scene taking place in the taxi (such scenes make
up a good part of the film). The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is lively enough,
giving a significant rumble to the lower-end activity and providing some
inventive separation effects, but fails to balance these with the dialogue
(leaving it somewhat buried in the mix at times).

The disc features two separate versions of Taxi: the theatrical cut,
and a special "extended" edition that runs a few minutes longer but
adds nothing—just more repetition to a movie that doesn't need any. It's
actually difficult to tell where the new footage is, exactly, and the fact that
director Tim Story's audio commentary appears only on the theatrical cut means
that he's not able to point it out. His track is nothing special, providing some
background and logistical information and seemingly not grasping just how much
his film falls flat. Some deleted scenes and a handful of featurettes are also
included, all presumably to prove that JIMMY FALLON REALLY IS FUNNY—an
idea that fails to come across.

Closing Statement

Just about every film critic I read included Taxi on his or her end-of-the-year "Worst of
2004" list. I guess it's like they say—fifty million Elvis fans can't
be wrong.